Who Built the Internet, and Is It for Sale?

[B_Sing]

from a ZDNet blog, which is also, coincidently, where the rumor got started.

[B_Sing]

Hmmm. Craig Newark of Craigslist says it was a bug in the firewall software used by Cox (made by Authentium). However, he is quite light on details. That ZDNet blog said it was an IP misconfigruation on Craiglist's part that caused the trouble.

Hmmm. What to do? Two hypotheticals to chew on.

We can:

A: Call the IP Fairness Committe (IPFC) to get IPFC Form 10-289/a filed right away! There's a 6 month delay in getting an investigation started. The investigation will cost about a million, and take a lot of time and energy on everyone's behalf. Time and energy that could be spent moving forward.

Or,

B: Shine a light on the problem and have people get it fixed.

The net has greatly enabled the latter. Let's use that - it's faster, cheaper and better. And it involves fewer lawyers, which can't be a bad thing. ;-)

It seems to me from the details I've seen that Craiglist might be getting some special treatment from Authentium, since it seemed like it was Craiglist's misconfig. Whatever. It'll get fixed. Negative PR is a powerful tool.

Here's another interesting article offering a good description of the whole net neutrality issue and a scary proposition as a solution: No one to root for in the net neutrality debate.

Brian

[boomer400]

OK, I'm all right with all this anti-net neutrality hubbub. But none of you people have really said anything of substance about what you would like to see in your Internet connection. Are you all absolute free-marketeers and perfectly content to let any ISP decide on how the Internet behaves in your neighborhood? If so, why? If not,why? Myself, I would like to see fiber-optic all the way up to my houses' demarc; at one point, in the '90s, PacBell had a fair percentage of fiber installed in my area but not plugged up. For the better part of a decade, the fiber was hanging off the poles and rotting. Then they decided to pull it off and sell it. Now, I get to pay $100+ bucks a month for blocked digital "TV" access and then $28 a month for 512k/3Mbps copper DSL (ATT). For $50 a month, I can "share" broadband cable, whooee!!! As far as I can tell, the ISPs (re, telcos) have really pulled the wool over on those people who think that there is going to be some kind of awesome performance in the future. It's all BS; we coulda had that 6-8-10 years ago but the government gave that up and the businesses decided to "keep" the money for buyouts. And as for my opinion on ISPs and corporations/businesses being forward thinking, let's be honest. That forward thinking is only relevant to the bottom line; it's not in terms of technology rollouts. I can't fault them for being that way; the US public has asked them to be that way with quarterly reports et al. Why would anyone in their "right" mind spend a lot of money on something that is a decade away in making money (maybe)? All of you guys who BELIEVE in private enterprise forget that most of the "infrastructure" that built a lot of the US is actually paid for by us citizens through the government. And that government set some kind of standard for what they were building at that time. If private enterprise were SO great, we wouldn't have highways or integrated power delivery (even if it were unwieldy or dilapidated) or modern aircraft funded by the government. Most of the modern technology we have IS derived from government influence in some manner. I don't think it's fair that we flame at the civil service when we allow it to be degraded on the basis of our decisions or lack of decisions. In general, the old saw of "you get what you pay for" stands the test of time. So, I have no big problem with paying for better Internet stuff; I do have a problem with no one saying what ought to be the result of those dollars!

[David Abramowitz]

boomer400 wrote: In general, the old saw of "you get what you pay for" stands the test of time. Well then, for a one-time fee of about $6k we could get Internet Routers and connect directly to the backbone. It's not so far fetched. These routers cost $10k just a few years ago, and a few years from now, the price could be considerably less. Dave

[boomer400]

ok, y'all, here's a nice example of our government dollars at work! And this is from people who support the corporations! I wonder who's informing who? Yea! Freedom to do whatever you want on the "net" as long as government "controls" don't exist. Sorry, B_Sing, but your evidence just doesn't click with me. I don't like government controls any more than you do but the lack or neutering of government control is not an answer either. If someone needs to send realtime heartrate monitoring over the Web, I would seriously consider another health provider. If critical stuff like that needs to go out, I don't think that the existing setup can support the QOS required; nor do I think that it should. Critical/secure life-threatening stuff belongs on internal networks, not on the Web.

[MCWebsite.Staff]

** This thread discusses the Content article: Who Built the Internet, and Is It for Sale? **0

[boomer400]

Haha, forgot the link! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DClkE64nFDY ">Senatorial BrainDrain